Stark: Sunak sending ‘mixed messages’ on EVs

Rishi Sunak has sent out “mixed messages” by relaxing the phase out of petrol and diesel cars and vans until 2035, while maintaining targets for motor manufacturers to make electric vehicles, Chris Stark has warned.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) chief executive said the relaxation of the previous 2030 EV target was one of the two aspects of the prime minister’s September net zero announcement he was “most worried” about.

He said Sunak’s decision to drop plans to force private landlords to upgrade their properties’ energy efficiency had been the “more consequential” move.

Stark pointed out that the government has kept in place its zero-emission vehicle mandate, which sets car manufacturers targets for the output of EVs.

But while this dealt with the manufacturing side of the challenge of moving to EVs “quite effectively”, pushing back the ban on sales of new internal combustion engine cars and vans sent a “strong signal to consumers that we are delaying progress on the transition to electric vehicles,” he said.

“We’ve picked up from from car manufacturers a certain amount of anger because he didn’t change the mandate on those manufacturers but said to consumers you don’t need to buy their cars.

“Those two messages are mixed and although the economics and commercial case for electric cars are strong, signals matter.”

Stark told MPs that the announcements earlier that day in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement, including moves to speed up delivery of grid infrastructure, meant the CCC felt “slightly more positive” about the chances of the UK meeting its net zero targets than when the climate advisory body presented its latest progress report in the summer.

He also said that while the CCC had been “very worried” after the failure of September’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) Auction Round 5 to attract any offshore wind bids, this had been “swiftly followed by quite decisive action” by the government to remedy the situation.

And the CCC chief executive expressed confidence that the more generous strike prices, which the government has announced for next year’s CfD auction, will attract projects.

“If cost inflation is 25 to 40%, that headroom in the strike price would accommodate that. By putting in a high price, you let an auction do the job it’s there to do, which is invite bids and bring that price back down again because it’s just a ceiling price, so we should get a price less than a ceiling price.

“If it clears at a lower price we get this double dividend of extra volume and cheaper prices for consumers and we meet these very rapid deployment targets that the government has set and industry says they are willing to deliver.”

He also told the committee that the CCC is planning to publish its proposed seventh carbon budget, which will cover the late 2030s to early 2040s, as “early as possible in the next Parliament” and is aiming for February 2025.

As part of this exercise, the government would be looking at how to ensure the costs of decarbonisation are distributed fairly across society. Stark said: “We will look at how to distribute costs so you are not asking those who can’t afford it to make investments that they can’t afford.

“That would be very unpopular and also wouldn’t be a good strategy for achieving decarbonisation because if you can’t afford your gas bill you are unlikely to go out shopping for a heat pump.”